Scott Kamps
After over 20 years of raising young’ins (five of my own), I’ve learned a few things.
Some of the things my wife and I did we weren’t 100% sure we were doing right, but looking back now, I am glad we did.
Navigating youth sports is a challenge nowadays. It easily consumes a home – especially with multiple kids. Our children were limited in what sports they could participate in, because they weren’t in public schools, but they still had more options than time reasonably allowed (especially when they were young). My solution – though difficult to stand by at times – was to allow one sport for the kids to play. To be clear, not one sport per child – but one sport they all could play (whichever ones wanted to). They usually chose wrestling – although baseball was very tempting for some of them. This was a limiting choice, because I wouldn’t let my daughter wrestle at all (for reasons beyond this column), but she always happily cheered on her brothers.
I’m not advocating that others copy what we did; I’m just saying that limiting your kids opportunities to play every sport they want is not life shattering – and you probably won’t regret it. I know we don’t.
Navigating screentime, phones and social media are huge issues that parents need to think through nowadays. We sought to limit those things significantly; extremely by current standards. We endeavored not to use screens as “babysitters.” Our options were always limited when searching for a vehicle: we needed a 4x4 with at least seven seats, so we looked for used Suburbans; but we wanted them without DVD players (harder to find).
Furthermore, our kids didn’t get phones until ages 16-18; and even then, their use was heavily restricted. Our kids often found themselves with other kids their age who were scrolling on their phones, but observing others (while sometimes lonely) discouraged them from engaging in that antisocial behavior. My daughter still refers to people who just stare at their phones in social settings as “phone zombies” and my oldest son can be frustratingly hard to reach by phone (but I don’t regret that).
Limiting social media is another area I advocate for “extremism” (more and more studies support this view). Our boys stay busy enough that they never really had a desire for social media, but at times my daughter wanted it. My spiritual gift is saying no to my kids, but that was a difficult “no” to say. At times I wondered if I should have just let her; and when she turned 18, I gave her permission for social media, but by then she had no desire for it – and still doesn’t!
At that point, I was grateful for my prior decision.
Parents have unique challenges and difficulties as they raise and shepherd their children in the modern world. None of us get it right all the time, but thank the Lord we can get some things right – and that He is gracious, even in the midst of getting things wrong.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.